ensued following the late conservative logger andrew beit berg -- breitbart's speech that she delivered to the naacp. the clip made it appear that sherrod was guilty of racial prejudice and she was asked to resign her position. ms. sherrod's critics and the obama administration apologize for their rush to judgment. shirley sherrod was offered another position with the agriculture department which she declined. this is about an hour. ..

this is a really special moment for all of us in this room. only in new york for only one night. it if you're here with us at the shong berg, i should let you know straight away if you would like to ask questions, you need to write them down on the card the lady in the white will be going around and take the cards so we can put some input in from the audience at the end. i want to start with -- we had a beautiful conversation on the

phone. we a whole -- i know you i know you i know you. in chapter one, this was page six of the book, you talk about when you would as a child drive down the back road georgia and how scary that was. but you write in the book, you say that through this incident in july 2010, that there were more than one way to terrorize somebody based on what happened. can you talk a bit about that? >> well, in those years, it was really scary before we liberated, let's say baker county. [laughter] but to have this happen, to have a blogger, i mean, you're only trying to do the best that you can for everyone, and to have someone take your word to use

the equipment that they have today to cut and splice to make your message appear to be the exact opposite of what it was and what it is is just an unbelievable situation. and it is a way to terrorize someone. you don't know that you'll ever really be able to get the truth out. but that was a determined even if i had to tell one person at the time, it makes me think, you know, there's a whole media kind of energy around this book. the last time there was kind of media energy it was july 2010, when with went down. yes. >> people go back to the places making the accusations calling you a reversed racist. the speed it happened.

how did it feel being back in the space now that you have the whole story? >> it feels god to know that -- first of all, with that able to use the same media in a sense to be able to get a story, the right story out. it feels -- i can't explain how great it feels to be able to sit here and to hear the actress really -- oh my godness, whron if you saw me i was crying a little. it was amazing. i didn't ever think -- i made the decision years ago, i didn't want people to forget my father and what he meant to us. i had no idea i would be able to tell the story in this way. it feels great. >> what is so beautiful about this book? i feel like it's more than a book. it's a living history, it's like

a love letter to choices, and it remind us that without the feelings the facts don't convey enough what a history it has been and as brutty as the history for african-americans for humidity and rights have been there has been humanity and love and family and choice and possibility and sacrifice. i wonder if you could go back. i know, you grew up in the georgia and you were a total daddy's girl. i know, you were gangster driving the tractor. [laughter] [inaudible] >> well, you know, we were in baker county, you hear about -- you read about some of the shares of earlier years, but the gator and the sheriff in our county wanted to be known as the

gator. the gator actually ruins everything everyone in the county -- you can't imagine looking at the western from earlier days anybody like him. he was worse than you see in the worse western. growing up in that, my family lived -- my great, great grandparents had come to baker county. i don't know whether they came as slaves or not. they ended up as sharecroppers with the intent on buying land. and that they did. they bought enough land that the area where i grow up is still today called harkin'stown and lots of family but it was that way, you know, the harkins lived lived in one area and the williams and the other. we were one big family and felt we had to help each other. and so i was raised up on the

farm and my father, there were five girls, you know, any farmer wants a son. i guess any man wants a son. my father and mother kept having baby and they were all girls. now we all had as far as knick fames i was bill. [laughter] nickname was bill? >> yes. >> that is hilarious. [laughter] >> but, you know, as faith as we could be in the situation we were in we felt safe there. i feel like my father wanted us have to have an education. i think he thought all of us would come back home and try to work from there. but i grew up with lots of family and community support. i grew up, i went to a segregated school, when brown v

board of education georgia's answer was to throw up the schools to supposedly give us equal separate but equal facility. only attended segregated school. but in those schools, we had people who cared. we had teachers who cared. but they all -- one thing they drilled in to us in the church, in our homes with and in the school was that they expected us to do good. they expected us to go and do good and reach back and help others. [applause] >> you say the country right now day three of the huge typier strike in chicago. a battle right now for the soul of education public education. so your daddy was killed by white folk.

yes. >> go back to that time and what happened what you know about what happened and how your family worked through that. >> that happen at the time when a look back at the days, my father seemed to be about as happy as any man could be. he had convinced my mother, tried one more time for the son. [laughter] ifers a senior in high school, my youngest sister was eight. he wanted to try one more time. he knew it was a boy. in fact he stayed -- we were concerned and one day at school my best friend asked me how is your mom. i said she doesn't seem to be getting any better. he said, girl, your daddy was at stoart yesterday giving out cigars. your momma is going to have a baby. [laughter] he told everyone that this was the son. so he was still in on top of the world. we were getting a new home built. he was able to get along the

first black person to get a loan through farmers' home administration to build a home. he wanted a brick home, but the white county supervisor told him that a black person could not borrow the money to build a brick home. he and my mother had to pick the smallest blocks they could. we were getting a new home. he was setting aside one room in the house for the son. so, i mean, he was happy. i'm the oldest, and the oldest was about to graduate from high school, and going off to college, and then suddenly we went to church the day before, and we were always in church. and i was driving the family to church. we met the man on the road to church, it was a dirt road. we stopped, and he told my father he was coming to get the cow and my father told him, if do you come back tomorrow, i'll bring some others around to the

pasture to help. they agreed to meet the next morning at 9:00. the next day, we all got up and went to school, and mid-morning the principal called on the intercom for me to come to the office. i went to the office, and that's when they told me that my father had been shot. they sent for my other sisters, and they were afraid the teachers and principal didn't know what to do. but suddenly one of the teachers said she would take us to the hospital where they had taken my father. and she was so afraid, i can remember the way the little town is, there was a small bridge that crossed the river in to the next county, and you could barely get two cars to pass each other on the bridge. but it was the only way to get to the next county without going maybe thirty miles out of the way. you had to go through.

you were suppose god go through the downtown area to get to the bridge, she actually went way around from keep from being seen taken us to the hospital. when we with arrived at the hop they had actually moved to albany at that point. it was actually the next day when we got a chance to see hmm him. he lingered for ten days before dying. and i can remember on the night of his death, that the house filled with people, my mother was seven month pregnant, and the baby really was a boy. he was born two months after my father's death. she was seven months pregnant, and people were coming to show support for us, and i just didn't want to be around anyone. i went in to one of the rooms, and as the oldest i felt i needed to do something. i felt that if i had been a boy, i probably would have been

gotten a gun to go and kill the man and that thought came to my mind. but i couldn't do that, i was my father had tried to teach us one day to fire a weapon, and all of my younger sisters were taking their turn with the gun. had he put the gun in my hand all i could do was cry. so i knew i couldn't get a gun to try to kill the man. i needed to do something. i was praying and i remembered the thought this came in to my mind. my folks didn't know that i didn't intend to live in the south. i wanted to get away from baker county. i was applying to schools in the north, and let them know at the time. i really did not want to live in the south. because of the con decisions we were living in. because i didn't want to have anything to do with the farm again in my life. [laughter] i would talk to the son and say

you wait. [laughter] but the thought came to my mind that the thing i could do would be to give up my dream of living in the north to stay in the south and to devote my life for working for change. i remember i felt a calmness after that. i couldn't share even that with anyone. and i didn't know how i would do it. we were not involved in the civil rights movement. charles sherrod and others had been working in the movement and albany to '61. this was '65. they had also started the movement in several other counties in the care. and i tease them now because the gator had the worse reputation, and he had not come to baker county to help get the movement started there but once my father, who was the leader in the community was murdered, that

was the one thing that really brought everyone together and they were ready for him when they came in to help us start the baker county movement. >> wow. what's interesting to me is you really -- in the bock you really write about the way the legacy of trauma impacts you as a family. so even though we all know the landmark brown v board of education. you talk about the fact when it happened, the black children who went to the white school lost their black friends. couldn't make any white friend and couldn't stop living in the no-man's land. i don't think we get a chance to feel the price that those young folk paid in order for us to be where we are. we know it intelligently. we don't get to feel it. >> we started the baker county

movement in june of '65. in august of '65, my sisters and about fifteen others decided to integrate the white school. when they -- i can remember the first day we took them. i had graduated, and was going off to college in secht. we took them to the -- we tried to to take them to the school. but the gator was about block away, stopping us. they couldn't start the first day, the next day they what we call -- we would do in the movement things would happen. you call the justice department. can't get justice. the same people. some of the same people were probably clan members too. you know, in. >> really. just saying. >> they were eventually able to start school, but there was

signs up in the school, another coon dead. there were tacks in the seats. the white teachers would refer to them as negative rows and they endured so much. the thick thing that was so hateful, that impacted them, i guess so much too, was that they had the to scare ride the same bus that the other black children road, but then they go over to the white school. they have to bring them from the white psychological to the black school to take the bus home, and they would not allow them even if it was raining to come in to the black school to wait for the bus. these were our own people doing this. and then at the end of the school year, those who were juniors and seniors could not attend the prom at the white school and were not allowed to attend the promise at the black school.

now we had a program about three years ago -- because that's -- these are older people some of them 60 years old now, and they still hold that in them. we had a program where we got the congressman to give them plagues, the secretary of state. we did lots of things to try to help them to understand we appreciate what happened to them, but even though that school, that black school is now -- we actually turned it in to a center for the community. this is the things we have done. not someone else. we raise place and did everything we could do to hold on to the building which was a separate but equal facility. we have a commercial kitchen where people can make product and get it on the market. we have a [inaudible]

in there head start and other programs. those individuals who were hurt so much as juniors and seniorss by our own people still don't feel comfortable with going to that building to do anything. >> wow. >> and this is all of these years later. they remember what happened to them. even though the people who did it many of them are not even living now. they still can't let go. >> wow. this is what [inaudible] emotional justice the idea that the legacy of untreated trauma stays us with generation to generation. i think we carry what happened emotionally even though the celebration about the fact of the landmark case and the fact the schools in their own segregated. l reality of those who actually walked that journey is not a

space we get a chance to experience. i appreciate a beautiful thing the way the book fills in the gaps that were rue typely left out. i call living history. you can feel it and breathe it. it's emotional. it made me cry so many times and so -- just to come back, you know, your father was killed when you were 17. your mother was seven months pregnant, and you say it taught you about how strong your mother was because the family changed erratically. but also you talk about the fact that, you know, at that time, somebody died there was no counseling or nothing to help the family to deal with the loss. >> right. during these days when there's a death, they bring counselors in. we department have that. each of us had to deal with it in our own way, and then shortly, you know, my father was murdered in mar, we started the movement in june, two weeks

after i left to go to school, they call and said a group of white men burned a cross in front of our house. my mother and four sisters were at home. like i said, we moved in to the new home one week before my father died. he was with us in that house one week, and then one of my sisters was sitting up one night, this was in september of '65, studying and saw a line of cars, you know, in the area you see a lot of cars coming around the road, you kind of wonder what's going on. she actually went -- my mother was in the bed to tell her there were lots of cars coming down the road. he said, they probably -- she named one of the neighbor's going his house. i don't know why she thought that. my sister saw the cross burning

and my mother actually went out on the porch and said light was so bright that he could actually recognize some of the white men who were out there. but what happened was she told one of my sisters to because we were organized in the movement, she told one to get on the phone to call so they actually allow them to leave and suddenly the gi or it shows up with they were aware of what's going on and nothing happened as a result of her identifying some of the people.

but my mother, she became, you know, when daddy was living. we felt like there was six girls. you know. she was one of us. but she really grew up. [laughter] and and eleven years after my father's death, when my mother announced us, i'm running for office. i couldn't believe it. i was happy. [laughter] [applause] we -- [applause] that year, the gator also decided he was retiring, and but he decided one of the sons would now become sheriff. so he had one of his sons running for office, so we were running in to some of the -- as we campaigned around the county that sum

the arm to say come on, just leave that alone. so he pulled his daddy outside. now i can tell you that night driving from newton, the

and [applause] [applause] she became the first black elected official in baker county. and believe it or not. she's still serving. [applause] [applause] we convinced her this year, they were begging her please stay in. he has been the voice for people on that board for all people but especially black people on the board of education in baker county. our first meeting with the first meeting back in 1976, the supertent introduced her as the he said i want to introduce the newest board members, joe haul's daughter. there was a old board member that said, is that thing nigger. i want to tell you that's an honest man. he found my wallet he brought it to me and all the money was

still in there. that was -- [laughter] you know. but she's a strong woman. we convinced her though to just give it up. you have so many things happening in education. the superintendent begged us -- because if we had gone along her children with another four years, i'm sure she'd be there. we thought at this time, it's time for her to enjoy life a little more. she's always on the case. always whether in education or whatever. she's the person people go to in the county for help. [applause] [applause] and so with all this political activity still managed to find love in the land of hate.

[laughter] [laughter] sherrod. you fell in love with a freedom writer. he is here? charles sherrod! [applause] [cheering and applause] [laughter] now according to the book, you know, a young man was interested in a young lady wasn't interested in return. what was up? [laughter] >> you know, he met my family before he met me, and for all of these years until about two years ago, i thought he wasn't telling the truth. he kept telling me he said, i -- when i saw your picture i said i'm going marry that girl. my said it's true. it he -- he met them and then they kept talking about this other sister they had, and he wanted to see a picture, and

they showed him the picture and they h he said i'm going to marry her. within duoyears we were married. >> aye! love in the land of hate. [applause] [applause] >> and so you get married and you and your husband are working together. your both in the movement. and you're really dealing with the issue of farmers and discrimination and establishing the degree to which the discrimination works. and then you are pregnant with your daughter russia. and mr. sherrod decides he's going take a trip to israel to figure out farmings in a different country. you just had your baby. >> you know, when i married him, i realized i was -- i was marrying a person who was married to the movement. [laughter] and i admired that in him. i had to share him with everyone

. always. >> but it's beautiful the way you write about when you had to resign and you called charles on the phone, and chairmans was the one who seized your spirit as you were driving home on that day? july 2010. so question with have something in common. you made a trip to csh -- scholarship you also write about that in the book. going to ghana, going to stand in the space where potentially your answers to those who were enslaved africans may are come from. that was like what? >> oh my goodness. i can remember -- and the reason why i had the opportunity go, i had applied for a kellogg scholarship and didn't think i would get it. during the final interview one person asked me is there something you want to do that you never had a chance to do. i said yes?

i always wanted go to africa. he said where? ghana. ken yab we just started naming countries. the first thing i did after i was notified i had the fellowship and to start traveling i went to ghana. and i was so excited that i couldn't sleep. i mean, i was just -- the thought of getting to africa i don't understand a place where my ancestors came from. ..

african-americans, you kind of go there and you become the united nations and navigate your way through the big thread and you come back to the farm and you are working and dealing with the discrimination so you you were on the other and of the usda and you are seeing exactly how the discriminatory policies what they are in the ground, having the land foreclosed upon have knowing there is a mean-spiritedness about the way they were foreclosed on their land. tell us about that. >> one of the things i had to do, and i was determined that everyone who worked with me did that. i made sure we learned those regulations better than the folks they had working in those offices so that you would know when they were doing something

or are saying something wrong. you would know when you were in one that has ever had to deal with discrimination, to know exactly what that person is doing to you is wrong plus i wanted and i needed to be able to do that. i can remember a farmer called me -- he received a letter to come in to the local office, which is about 60 miles away. he asked me if i would come to that office with him with his wife, and i said yes so i drove down to that office that morning. we went into the office with the account supervisor and he started telling the farmer that he was going to foreclose. the farm had a farm ownership home and the homeowners loan which is two different kinds of loans. he described the process, that

he would foreclose first on the farm and in the house. the farmer's wife started crying during the speech that he was making because the guy would never stopped. is trying to give him a chance to finish what he had to say but it was obvious he was just going to talk and talk it not give us a chance to respond so why stopped him and i said will you put that in writing greg's he said i ain't putting nothing in writing. he didn't say it that way at first. what he did when i said we put that in writing come he pushed his chair back from his desk and started looking at his feet. he eventually turned the chair all the way around looking at the floor and then looked at me and said i ain't putting nothing in writing. so we went at it oh did we ever. i wish to this day -- though i could remember what i said to him but i can't. so he eventually -- somehow we stopped and he told the farmer that he would get a

letter in about six weeks so he was outlining the process and the farmer had a bad time so he coughed a lot. mr. smith he should do something about that coffin patting him on the back. well i want you to know that every time that farmer got a letter stating what actions they would take, we appealed. i went to so many appeals here and sometimes i would forget what are we here for this time? but i stayed on that county supervisor case and i submitted so many complaints that he eventually left the agency. [applause] and that land is still with that farmer today. [applause] on the other hand i had a white farmer.

these are some things that happened. the one white woman from baker county where i grew up had a boyfriend who had a farm and he was experiencing some problems. so she wanted me to come to lunch at her house. a black woman that i knew was her housekeeper and cook, so i took my husband and i said you have to go with me, man. [laughter] so we went to lunch at her home and then from there the white farmer and his son, we were going from there to the county supervisor's office about 10 miles away. we walked into that office and the account supervisor was expecting the farmer and wasn't expecting me so we walked in together. to get rid of me -- he wasn't sure why it was there i guess. he had heard about me. many of them had, so he told the

farmer to walk down the hall to another room. well the three of us walked down the hall to the other room. so he knew then without a doubt i was with them. so he sat down and started talking to them that he tried to turn in such a way that he was turning his back to me. every time a response was needed, i responded. i didn't let the white farmer respond so finally he realized he had to talk to me. and of course there were many many, many situations. i heard over in east georgia one of the county supervisors was saying, now, over here. well i went one day. [laughter] [applause]

this young black man, his grandfather was giving up the farm and he was interested in farming. he had just been highlighted in one of two usda publications because he worked and soil conservation helping a white farmer but do you know when i prepared his business plan, they denied his loan for lack of experience. so i told them, the process for dealing with that is that you have to within the first two weeks of denial requests and appeals hearing. he called me after they requested appeal hearing and i would be there but do not tell the woman, do not tell her i will be there with you. so on the date he was given for the hearing, i had to drive 150 miles to get to him. by the time i was there, i was really mad. [laughter] and i had heard that they said

don't come to that hearing with her. the poor woman, think about it now because i was on her until she was trembling. but the young man got his loan. [applause] i felt bad about the way i treated her. [laughter] >> and i think it's important to understand that you come from a place where you have been on the receiving end of this discriminatory practices of the usda so that when you walk into the usda to become the first director of rural development for georgia and the present administration, you have this unique history of having personally experienced the

discrimination and having helped with lack and white farmers navigate and you have all the stories that proved him again and again and again to the point that in the book when you submitted your resignation all these reports came flooding in about all the stories you have been telling. one of the letters of support wrote about the usd loan official who kept a news in his desk. he kept a news in his desk. if you would open the drawer you would see it and he would shout it if he was having an actual meeting. that was the reality that you walked into and then you get hired by the first african-american president. become all the way back to the beginning in 2010 and the president does --

and when you read the book, this is what you call him having a conversation with the president of the united states. talk a bit about that conversation. >> well you know, i was actually here in new york. i had just been on that you and was in a limo on the way to the airport with cnn when i received a call that was a 404 area code. it was a plan to so i answered it and was congressman john lewis. when we finished talking i decided i should take my text messages because i couldn't keep my voice mail clear enough to keep getting messages so lo and behold there was a message from the white house saying the president was trying to reach me. so i called the number and they wanted to arrange the call, so

it was so interesting these people in the media. the person who was in the car with me from cnn pulled out a camcorder and i said, you cannot take me while i am talking to the president, so i made her turn it off and put it away. [applause] so, he started out by saying you are a hard person to reach. well everyone knew i had been with cnn all week. but anyway, he started out and you know they would be calling me about a position they wanted to offer and then he said you know, those issues you have been putting out there all week i am well aware of them. and i said no, you don't understand those issues the same way i do. so we went back and forth and i

realized i was talking to the president but well -- [laughter] [applause] he was trying to tell me, yes i do and if you read my book i will understand and i said no you don't understand these issues the same way i do. we were going back and forth like that and finally i said do you know what? you should come to southwest georgia. he said, sanford has been trying to get many come. sanford is the congressman from the second rational district where i live. and i said, well you should, and when you come bring michelle with you. so, we left -- bad visit did not happen but he also told me beyond man who arranged the call could get to

him and if i had a message for him or in issue or whatever i could contact that young man. i didn't keep that number though. i don't do stuff like that. [applause] >> i was thinking since the president kindly offered you his book i think you should offer him yours. [applause] and a signed copy, right? we are going to take some questions before we finish up and you'll get your chance to get your copies. shirley will be signing those. some of you have written questions down and debbie is going to bring us the questions so we are going to be able to ask you, so that you can have a conversation with our audience.

this is very emotional for me because my father was in the movement and my family was in the movement. this is the beauty and the power of the way living history crosses borders, breaks down boundaries and that the truth, when it comes to this history, is a global one and the universal one. i feel in the way that you wrote this, i got a chance to hear things that my father never got a chance to say and i think one of the things that he is trying to -- is the silence because the pain is so deep and what you do is you kind of said on that scar and you've lifted up. that is a beautiful thing because it means a whole generation gets a chance to understand its portion of history to this moment in a way that they could not possibly have done. this book should be in schools and it should be in the curriculum.

[applause] so we are just going to take a few questions and then we are going to close out. okay. okay. do you still believe that it was enough to dismantle white supremacy and economic exploitation of african-americans and what else do you believe needs to be done when it comes to racial and economic injustice? >> integration obviously -- be thought, i think back to when we were integrating the white schools. we thought simply putting our children there was enough but we didn't provide the support that was needed to help them get through that experience.

and, we kind of let white people off the hook with that as well. they did the things they did and for us and baker county, it was at a time when people thought okay we can register to vote. we can meet anywhere. we can sleep anywhere. our children are in the white schools and we have done the job but we -- there was so much more that had to be done and those of us who lived through those years of segregation and jim crow, the hurt is so deep that we didn't want our children to experience bad and to know that. it's almost like we wanted to wipe that part of slavery and those years away so that our children could be in this society and move on.

so much is happening to them that they don't understand because they don't know their history. [applause] >> so we have some questions. this is a two-part question. what are some of the main challenges and the next generation and with that in mind what is the new community planning? >> okay, well just like me, just like i was back in those years, when it comes to agriculture, we i think think only of picking cotton or shaking peanuts but let me tell you, there are machines to do that now. it takes almost an educated person to run those tractors and those tractors have fm stereo send them with air-conditioning.

when it comes to agriculture, we run away from it, so the land, they land that we had as black people, most of it is gone. we didn't realize that our ancestors coming out of slavery acquired and left for us so we are around 1920, 1910, right in that era, black people owned almost -- almost 15 rather, million a krissah farmland. today that is down to around 2 million we are still losing. growing your own food and getting in touch with the land you know, you can learn just about -- you can learn so much in life,

so much that can take you through life by connecting with the soil. you can learn, just -- kids can learn math. they can learn to read. there is so much to be learned and so much that the earth can give to us and in addition good, wholesome healthy food to be. [applause] we need to know how to grow it. >> especially when i think about the challenges with african-american communities and the challenges to getting fresh food in the community. another question was, considering farming for a living, how would you compete with the agro corporations that are squeezing out the land

purchase? >> let me tell you something we are doing now. all of our school systems are being mandated to buy local produce. the thing that is keeping our farmers, small farmers from being able to access that market and others like it is that you have to have a facility to be able to bring that produce and to be properly washed, packed, cooled before it can be delivered and in some cases chopped or sliced. one farmer, one small farmer alone can make that happen but getting farmers to work together in groups, they can, so right now in albany georgia -- that is one of the major projects i'm working on, trying to get a processing center for farmers to be able to use so that they can access market so

they don't need to compete with farmers trying to sell to public store kroger or some of the other big chains because they can't. all of us need to be. all of us need to be and there are markets right around them and people who are right around them need to support small farmers by buying from them. [applause] >> this is going to have to be the last question. many of the questions overlap each other so we are covering quite a bit of ground, covering three or four questions at a time. so the last question, who are the heroes that inspire you and specifically for younger generation what advice would you give to a younger generation facing discrimination and what would you say to encourage them to speak out for justice as you did to matt? >> there are so many well-known

people who inspired me that some of the people that inspired me, that really have had such an impact on me and the work that i have done are those people that you don't hear about, those women in the communities through the give day in and day out, not for the recognition they get because they will never be recognized for what they do, but they give over and over. they are not afraid. i can remember my husband talk about an older woman in lee county georgia. she is deceased now but he called her mama dolly. mama dolly was a midwife in her earlier years but she would set up at night with a shotgun patrolling, allowing the sncc workers to get some sleep. [applause]

my own aunt josie during the first march in macon county as white men were beating charles sherrod nearly to death, she threw her body over him and said if you don't stop you will kill him. you know, it's people like that, people who don't look for the recognition, but they work anyway. they helped to make our community work. [applause] >> and i think there was a question about the community. new communities. we created the organization back in 1969 and due to discrimination we lost 6000 acres that we had in 1985 and that was discrimination due to -- i mean discrimination in the

hands of the county supervisors and the farmers home administration. we became, i say weak, new community, became one of the claimants in the case and getting the largest award in pickford. and because of that -- because of that new communities bought more land and we have programs. they will be on that land beginning next month. they will be harvesting pecans. believe it or not you can grow oranges in georgia. we have oranges. not peaches yet but we will be planting peaches and probably muscat wine grapes like we had and doing lots of training around agriculture. we also have a racial healing

projects so that is interesting work to be able to sit down with white people in the area to talk about race. [applause] >> the book, not a book, a living history of a love letter to the revolutionary practice of forgiveness, the importance of choices, the reality that history is so much more than information. it is our a motion now the, that generation to generation does not help us create a better presence to open that up. the book is called "the courage to hope," shirley sherrod. [applause]

[applause] >> during the national book festival next week and on the national mall, lots of ways to contact some of our call-in authors. you can call in, you can e-mail, you can tweet and you can send a -- go to booktv.org for the full schedule of collins and author presentations. >> hear the best-selling nonfiction books according to "the new york times."

>> lets let's look at what the emancipation proclamation said. the proclamation enslaves people in those states or part of the state still in rebellion on january 1, 1863. it does not free everybody. just the states or parts of the

state still in rebellion so there are several parishes and louisiana where slavery still exists because the union army did not have control of that area. there are parts of virginia where the union army has a foothold. slavery still exists in those areas. mary stuckey talks about her book "defining america" the presidency and national identity [applause]

>> now i have to try to be engaging. i think the most important thing to understand about the presidency and its context is that we always have choices. when you pick a president, you are absolutely picking a particular kind of policy but you are also picking a definition of our national identity. if you hear a president and like what they are saying and do you feel yourself call to that presidency, then they are speaking to you about a sense of the national self that is deeply embedded in all of us and every time there's a presidential election, what one of our previous presidents learned from his sorrow is really an important part of what the presidency does because we see ourselves as a nation through the ways that presidents talk the nation into being. so what i'm going to do today is talk a little bit about franklin

roosevelt's version of what it meant to be an american added particular moment in our national history. i did this a little bit earlier but i want to go back a little bit today in this talk and say that prior to roosevelt, presidents tended to be very hierarchical in the way they interested the nation. they were often very explicitly exclusionary. they were the people like immigrants or african-americans and sometimes women who didn't get to be citizens and who were are specifically located in presidential rhetoric near the bottom of the hierarchy of the nation and the nation was understood as hierarchical rs local for many presidents. for instance the south became the demon region and there are reasons for that, because they were building coalitions that depend on including people but also always on excluding people. one of roosevelt's great geniuses as president is that he

almost never actively excluded people, but tended to base his notion of the nation on a very inclusive sense of what that meant. so that is what i'm going to talk about right now. this book is actually -- goes back a little ways and it's a book on the presidency is a hole in which franklin roosevelt is the pivot to the actual center of the book and in the larger book i examine the complex ways in which our national history can be understood as a struggle to live up to our highest principles while also maintaining allegiance to hierarchies of class and race that allow for stability. all of these things are sharply contested during the roosevelt administration. the economy lay in ruins, african-americans were make in demands for civil rights and women were increasingly flexing their political muscles and i use women in the vernacular and immigrants were increasingly being incorporated into equality

and all of the groups were integral to the coalition which continues to have an important influence on our politics. it was through roosevelts rhetoric as much as through policy that he crafted the coalition which has proven to be one of the most enduring, one of the most complicated our national history. roosevelts vision of the nation and the role of citizens was rooted in a condition which required a flexible leadership such as the present who could juggle various plants and in our government and indeed the metaphor for the juggler, which i clearly am not, was one of roosevelt's favorite ways to describe his understanding of his job as president the others being cat and magician. accomplish his rhetorical using for primary tactics, inclusion, denial, the flexion and deferral. these were all enabled by this overarching understanding of america as a nation for patchouli and progress. in 1936 the president said, do not look upon these united states as a finished product.

we are still in the making. it is notable that prior to roosevelt it was always these united states after roosevelt the nation understood itself as the united states. added move from a motion -- notion of collective states to one of an exclamation. forestier the nation hierarchies in a citizenship work as much on the present as the future. the basic thoughts underlying his policies quote did not narrowed the nationalistic. >> insistence is the first consideration upon the interdependence of various elements as part of the united states. for roosevelt the entire nation was interconnected but was not therefore static infix. it was always in motion, always developing. at there for required constant attention and constant adjustment, the kind of attention that only a strong president seated in a strong government could give. importantly he understood the nation as already fundamentally

united. the very centrist than made up the nation were perpetually contesting against another one another but they were not irrevocably opposed to one another. he said quote, some people who visit us from other lands across the seas find it difficult to credit the fact that a nation sparked from many sources and nation 130 million strong and nation stretching 3000 miles from east to west and all the greatest essentials of a civilization is a homogenous whole. for not only do we speak one language, not only at the custom and habits of our people essentially similar in every part of the country but we have given repeated proof on many occasions and especially in recent years that we are willing to forgo sectional advantage were such advantage can only be obtained by one part of the country at the expense of the country as a whole. because the nation shared, and believes in, culture and interest, some groups will be granted by the present temporary political primacy and others would be legitimately tonight

there claims on government and other claims could be deferred while others were deflected. most importantly the roosevelt of administration was marked by its enormous efforts for political inclusion. the these efforts are most clear in his willingness to offer this -- stipends to the poor. roosevelt treated all of the poor is that they were deserving poor, in part to him there has been a distinction made between the deserving and undeserving poor. relief under fdr was a matter of right. legitimating the needs of the poor also legitimated the demand from a political system and he therefore earned the loyalty of the poor. in addition he legitimated organized labor in ways that have not been previously seen. upon signing the national industrial recovery act for example he said quote its goal is the insurance other reasonable profit to industry and living wages for labor with the elimination of tyrannical methods and practices which have not only harassed honest business would have contributed two fields of labor. note here the importance of capital and labor, the subject

of this discipline. he made a distinction between honest business and tyrannical business and we all know what roosevelt did not hesitate at all for businessmen challenging his analogy and welcoming their hatred in the 1936 election. the flipside to that and take this into business was organized labor was able to see him as a champion in disbelief and honest policies were substantially more pro-business than was his rhetoric. this is important because roosevelt became an advocate for labor. he argued as if organized labor was good and worthy and important to the life of the nation. he subjected business differentiation distinguishing between good business which the government would support and the radical business which the government would not. that his rhetoric fdr was able to include labor which coincidentally included many members of new immigrant groups is already fully integrated into the american system while also protecting business as a whole.

only bad business practices would be subject to his discipline, capitalism are made for him the absolute foundation of the nation. as the new deal continued into the mid-1930s he became a little more suspicious of labor. strikes unleashed by the wagner act for instance were inconvenient to say the least and is fractious relationship with labour leader john ellis was famous. increasingly he began to their characters, their capacity for citizenship and stop me if any of this is sounding

familiar. immigrants were often associated with equally doubtful groups such as catholics who went to notre dame and people sometimes referred to the jewish deal, shattering and throughout the decade there were efforts to restrict immigration to americanize immigrants and control the behavior of new arrivals. roosevelt afforded all of these tendencies in favor of the narrative of inclusion. in on one of my favorites of his speeches on this he says the night is falling in the spirit of other days grew over the same. same. andrew jackson looks down at us from his prancing -- in the four corners of the square which we are gathered around the lit christmas tree are guarded by the intrepid leaders of the revolutionary war. lafayette in rochambeau from the shores of france. this is in keeping with the universal spirit of the festival we are celebrating.

but also large opportunity for themselves and their children. it is true that the new population flowing entire land is a mixed population differing often in language and external customs. but in one thing we were all alike. they shared a deep purpose for ridding themselves of these jealousies prejudices and the injuries and violence whether internal

that is what constituted the american citizen. that of course was extremely important and would lead up to world war ii. in that sense all americans now matter how recently arrived what understood as legitimate defendants of the founders. these citizens -- all americans who were willing to fight oppression as it was defined over the course of the administration were heirs of the

founders. those founders had children who grow up to be moneychangers, doubting thomas, and in general pretty much anybody who opposed fdr. those people were excluded sometimes from equality and sometimes from his record. he never spoke to asian-american groups and never visited indian reservations and he never spent time in hispanic or latino communities. he never spent much effort on african-americans. like some -- unlike some presidency did not spend rhetorical effort excluding people but basically ignore them. when he did, and he made more than his fair share of his attacks it was an assault on behavior rather than democracy. he never attacked people attack people for their class or race. he assailed economic worlds is injured at the ungrateful gentleman in the silk hat and

was cynical and selfish to define them. he question their motives and character them with demonic leaves. he made an affront of many famous joke. he was as capable as building anger is humor and said things i continued growth is the only evidence we have of life yet work in progress invariably and evidently are opposed opposed at every step, opposed bitterly and blindly. it would not be fun to be the target of such an attack. his enemies were not treated as people with legitimate concerns with the recent point of view but a malevolent obstructionists bent on destroying his administration the viability of democracy. it's important to know these people or not identifiable as members of any reticular race and ethnicity or religion. to see the the extent they had it looked like india was a big

leg defined class and occasionally during election years and political affiliations by but he demonized most brutally those who are already well central and the american political regime and never the people who were at the margins. he didn't back protect many of those. i'm going to skip some of this. the tendency to balance interests against one another to produce the common good intended to ignore inequalities but it was applied to nearly every group at one point or another. it was trooper labored upon itself the target of roosevelt's attention of his largess and also criticism. it was trooper african-american to the rancid more visibility under fdr and never passed during his administration. he did understand african-american needs not as racial but his economic. many new deal programs were legally to segregated and while racial justice was important especially if you happen to be one of the people who were

lynched, starving was also important and fdr tended to translate every group into an economic interest and we -- would do what he could economically for them. it is notable however he neither spoke nor acted when he could have. he maintain the color line until the end of his life. it was his his wife who took the strongest stand on racial issues and famously moving the chair to sit in the middle of a segregated event. roosevelt wanted african-americans -- such rhetoric tented to naturalize a lower position of african-americans in the hierarchy and did little to address or alter that. throughout his rhetoric he did strike an issue of fairness and for him fairness demanded the deferral of some demands on the system that he considered

acceptable and workable or poorly timed and he never consistently favored one group above others politically or rhetorically but instead relied on language like quote we know the human factor which enters the largely into this picture and we are trying to apply to all groups needing aid and assistance and not merely to a few scattered her favorite groups. demanding more than a president is like week to give you meant he would castigate u.s. selfish or unwilling to share or is unfair. this rhetoric had a powerful nationalizing function for citizens encouraged to think of themselves as heart of the greater national hole rather than members of small local or state-wide communities. he deeply believed in the importance of the reality of democracy is central fairness and argued consistently that policies were designed to promote and maintain that fairness which would eyes work itself out over time. for fdr being a good citizen meant being a good neighbor. able and willing to accept temporary sacrifice for his or hers fellow citizen on voluntary

appearance to national ideals including the prescription that everyone should have equal access to the necessities of life and above all on an overriding commitment to the common good. his values were important and to infect undergird the national sense of ourselves and let me be very clear i am not arguing against them but i am noticing in making these arguments of roosevelt was make in the challenge of building unified nation seem a bit easier than it would. ignored structural by both generals and priests and

in his famous first and not go for example he said quote if i read the temple -- temper of our people cracked a we now realize we have never realized before an dependence independence on each other. we cannot nearly take that must give as well. if we are to go forward we must move is a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline because without such discipline no progress is made and no leadership becomes effective. we are i know ready and willing to submit our lives and properties for discipline because it makes possible a leadership which is aimed at a larger good. good citizens must obey the president is good soldiers obeyed their commanding officer. the invocation of a nation organized to fight a war was at the time comforting and is also potentially dangerous. of the military model was a useful one for certain endeavors even here and hide park in the shadow of west point no one is going to argued the military is

an ideal model for democratic government. as noted this is especially important because in fdr's public rhetoric there is an explicit combination of wartime unity in the view of the nation and there is no doubt the roosevelt thought, we cannot leave to history without reckoning and shaping the advance of the republic. it's teaching it's been widely challenging the president was particularly difficult thing to do however well, evoking

military and religious leadership as models for democratic leadership remain problematic especially in the context of his claim to be a protector of democracy and given the rights of dictatorship in europe are but these models set into the theory is promote a democratic dictatorship record of the problems with fdr's brand of leadership the success is unquestionable. roosevelt argued consistently for a unified nation under the guidance of a strong chief executive that use that unity on premise with what he interested as an increasing national interdependence. he also understood american citizens lesson is geographically designed units and more as members of economic and defined groups. that is the thought of citizenship and national terms and citizens as connected to their economic interest. all these interests had roughly equal plans on the national government. the president's main task was in turn to balance the group so the

nation would be stable and just. when social justice is understood and largely economic terms something important is being overlooked. explicitly defined in christian terms is something akin to social justice is not reducible to economics and when the president puts himself in charge of when social justice is achieved those who are underprivileged lose the right to decide for themselves when justice mud look like and when it might be appropriate for them to push their claim. make no mistake the roosevelt administration is an important moment a very real progress for the american disenfranchised. a rare presence up in front to argue paternalistically for the validity of clearly demarcated national hierarchies. fdr assumed the position of spokesperson for those who tended to be placed at the bottom bottom of those priorities and an ideological move that the common man in rhetorical order while leading the leaving the social political and economic orders largely and

touched. roosevelt relied on a form of civic nationalism of inclusion on the face of commitment to common beliefs rather than hierarchies and this meant the disenfranchised that powerful warrants to support them in later arguments for inclusion on equal basis. this became important following the second world war as african-americans, women and american indians among others all stand arguments and debates that would explode to the 1960's and would lead to unsettling the national order in which roosevelt could not have foreseen andy with probably not endorse. under roosevelt the national narrative centered on the immigrant experience in laser sharpened and defined that national identity as one in which certain ideological positions were presumed to be shared and in that sharing constitute an american public among the people who came to yes with specific sets of goals and expectations of my. one author argued for world we live in is still franklin roosevelt's world and in many

ways for better or worse our national identity still very much the one he bequeathed to us. thank you. [applause] three minutes early. [inaudible] >> is shifted between the new deal and the world war ii years. >> i don't think is shifted all that much because i mean, there is very clear evidence from the archives that roosevelt was sort of on suit -- from a very early moment and when he started arguing in the mid-1930s, even before his 306 election he starts arguing against dictatorship and for democracy

and he does it in explicit terms. he uses light and dark, up and down and all of those kinds of metaphors and because that language was so consistent over time with a slight hiccup for russia, because first off russia is like on the side of the dictator and locally for him, luckily for him there is the siege of stalingrad which allows him to then talk about the russians in exactly the same way he talked about the british. but he keeps that same light and dark christian kind of movement throughout and that language authorizes his domestic policies and also makes very clear the argument he is making for war. it causes the -- all kinds of problems because the anti-interventionist end up having to argue that there is no more principle at stake in world

war ii and hitler makes that argument increasingly tricky. the more people know about this, the more people have to say there is nothing of value. there is no american value at stake in this war and that argument just becomes -- because you have to end up saying there are no moral values that matter which is essentially what happened to lindbergh in america first. yes, sir. >> following up on your theme of exclusion and inclusion and disenfranchisement. my understanding is that the right to vote had been defined not only just to white males but to white male property owners. >> that is certainly china constitution, yes sir. boats taking acting role in expanding the vote? >> no, i roosevelt

administration the last group to get the legal right to vote is african-americans to get no policies under him. american indians get the right to vote following world war i and the argument is very similar for american indians as it would become for african-americans later. they shed blood in the war for the nation. they have a right to citizenship and that becomes a very important parallel in the civil rights movement in and the right to vote but fdr didn't ever, as far as i know, looking at an archivist. there is no evidence that he was interested in extending the suffrage, was he? >> i was just curious because fdr grew up in a relatively wealthy upbringing. >> i don't think it was relatively wealthy. >> the guy was rich.

i always wanted to know though what really triggered -- a lot of people in his class started hating him. but downtrodden and the poor. what exactly trigger the idea because a lot of the other rich american dynasties at the time, certainly they have this humanitarian instinct so i was always just kind of curious what really brought them to the man, before he became the greatest world leader of all time really, how did he become also the man who went for like i said, the poor? >> there are two answers to that. i'm not a psychologist. i'm a political scientist. the one answer that a lotf